From the Mouths of Babes
by Sirenic Griffin
Summary: Summer is traditionally described as a time for romance in the realm of fantasy however reality is far crueller as Hermione suffers at the hands of fashion-twit and Draco gets sunburnt, so to them Hogwarts is Heaven however that is soon going to change.
1. From the Mouths of Babes

**"Hermione's Morning" was it's original title, however for some reason I decided to go an delete all my unfinished stories that I have written (... because I write stories think they are great ideas, share my ideas get bored with them and move on... it's a bad practice but it's one of the things on my new years resolution list.) and I** **discovered I had so many Hermione-Draco oneshots lying around that brilliant me decided to create ONE story that made sense, and so Welcome and I hope you enjoy it. This chapter happens to be dedicated to Indian Amazon, ****Gingham and Basil****, and Skybrd who thought there could be more to it and said so in their reviews... However wish me luck I do have trouble with keeping my attention on one thing long enough to complete it!**

**Chapter One: From the Mouths of Babes**

"It's my Birthday 'Mione!" Screamed a six year old as she ran through the halls at five o'clock on a beautiful August morning. The girl called " 'Mione " simply groaned and rolled over. The six year old turned into the unfortunate sixteen (but only barely as her birthday was in September) year old's room. Her blue eyes were alight with happiness as she took in her older cousin's bedroom. It might've been plain (in actual fact the six year old decided it was: there was lack on any real colour and nothing really interesting), the walls were white, the floors were wooden, no poster hung on the wall, the bed spread was a pale grey and the pillows slightly darker but everything seemed... well blank.

Except for the desk.

Beside the desk an old fashioned trunk lay, lid shut firmly tight and padlocked, that could've been interesting if the padlock hadn't been there.

On the desk, sat a computer - a laptop, that she'd recieved the birthday before, a long case that was roughly six inches long and a thick book. The six year old smirked as she pulled the chair to the desk, brushing back her sleek brown hair (that Hermione had missed out on) and grinned. Her fingers began to dare to open the book when-

"I can do magic without a wand you know." She jumped to see the muddy brown eyes of her elder cousin looking at her. Her hair stuck up at odd angles and she could see the hair tie that the girl usually used to tie the cursed hair up dangling pityfully at the end as if to say 'it's not my fault her magic works through her hair.' The six year old grinned.

"Helen. Stop it. You must have a good reason for waking me at five am." The six year old grinned again and jumped off the chair.

"It's MY BIRTHDAY 'MIONE" She shrieked and the sixteen year old groaned, grabbing Helen and pulling into bed with her, firmly pushing her against the wall.

"Night Helen." The six year old fumed.

"But-"

"No Buts."

"Oh! I want to see what you got me for my birthday… can you give it to me now? I'll look surprised when I open it again later when Hector wakes up. So… don't you want to give it to me now?"

"Not particularly."

"Oh." The little girl moaned and stared up at the very plain ceiling… it was very boring and she could just imagine a long crack in it that poured plaster all over her cousin, and unfortunately next door neighbour's head. The idea didn't have any merit and soon she was looking for something else to do.

"Can I see the photo of your friends again?" Hermione opened bloodshot mud brown eyes to glare at the nuisance.

"_Merlin. Curse me not." _She whispered swearing and let her hand trail under her bed. Eventually it came across a book, grabbing and hoping it wasn't the Monsterbook, she pulled it out and handed it to Helen. Helen giggled at the odd way of swearing 'Mione had picked up from the _other_ world.

"Enjoy, let me enjoy three more hours at least." She muttered.

The girl nodded and opened the book. On the first page staring up at her was a buck toothed Hermione (still with unmanageable hair), and freckled redhead that her cousin called Ron and a boy with glasses that she called Harry. They were laughing and Helen thought they didn't look much older than her. Sighing the six year old turned the page from the waving people and the photo Hermione that was blowing kisses at her.

A group of waving people in red and gold met her eyes, the photo was labelled and under it in big black letter read: Gryffindor: MY CLASSMATES. Helen smiled back at the waving people and turned several more pages, eventually finding her class photos.

The class photo that met her eyes was that of Care of Magical Creatures, or so the label said (Hermione's neat precise handwriting never lied.)

A giant stood behind the class, petting what looked like a Griffin (or something like that… Hermione had said it was something like a hippopotamus but the six year old hadn't paid much attention to Hermione when she'd been speaking because there were far too many animals to remember) which contentedly nuzzled him. The glasses boy had his arm around Hermione and she had hers around Ron. All of them were laughing at some private joke. Helen sighed. Watching the photo's was fun. Almost like watching Saturday Cartoons without sound.

That's when she spotted him. The guy on the far left of the photo standing next to two muscle men.

" 'Mione?" She asked prodding her cousin.

"Mmmm." Was the intelligent reply.

"Who's the blonde guy?" She asked and Hermione groggly sat up.

"Blonde guy?" She asked confused and Helen nodded, pointing.

"Yeah. Him." Hermione'e eyes glanced over the photo and she groaned.

"Ignore that he's even there." She said and lay back down. Helen scowled at the picture and the guy scowled back. She remembered seeing him in other of the class pictures when she'd looked before.

"Why?"

"Because he doesn't want to be there." She muttered and Helen tilted her head.

"Why?"

"He's only doing it to bully Hagrid, that's the giant."

"Why?"

"Cause he's a sadistic, pessimistic, totally dickheaded, arrogant, spiteful bastard of a slytherin." Helen nodded processing all the words, and then reprocessing them the way her mother did when she was talking to Tor, her older brother.

"So you like him?" Hermione snorted.

"He wishes."

"So do you like him?" Helen prodded again and Hermione bit back a laugh or a shudder (she couldn't decide which) at the thought.

"I'd prefer Pig, the hyperactive minature owl, to him even if we were the last human beings on the planet." Helen nodded thoughtfully and sighed.

"Tor was right." At this Hermione sat up and looked at her younger cousin who grinned.

"What did Hector say?" She asked, her voice taking a dangerous tone and Helen laughed.

"Tor said that you really do need to get laid." The sixteen year old gasped and sat up hearing such words uttered from the mouth of a six-year old.

"He told you that?" Her voice now thunderous. Helen nodded obstinately and no sooner that one could say 'Pig the Hyperactive owl' she was out of bed and racing down the halls.

"HECTOR GRANGER I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" She growled, and Helen could tell she was already thumping down the stairs and into Helen's house next door. It was six-thirty already and Tor… might be up… he usually was for a morning work out in the little gym station her parents had bought him. Helen sighed looking at the photo of the arrogant man, who smirked and gave her a purposeful wink. The six year old grinned.

"Hey, Spiteful Bastard of a Slytherin." The photo boy nodded in acknowledgement.

"Does Hermione need to get laid?" She asked quietly and it nodded its' head thunderously.

"Thought so. She's way to uptight about things." It nodded again and held up its' hand to indicate lots of other points.

"Yeah, about other things as well. Well SBoS I charge you with the mission. " The picture rolled it's eyes as if to say 'That nerd? Get a life. Make Potty do it.' Helen groaned and stared at the picture.

"Aw but-" It shook it's head vehementally.

"Aw. But Hermione really NEEDS A boyfriend." She said trying to reason with it.

"I do?" She spun to see the sixteen year old at the doorway, under her arm was a quickly turning blue Hector.

Helen nodded.

"Even at six." She sighed and Helen tilted her head.

"Serves me right thinking that it was just my family who missed the sex drive." She smirked uncharacteristically and knelt next to Helen.

"I don't need to get laid or have sex Helen." The six year old's eyes widened.

"Is that what getting laid is?" Hermione nodded and the six year old's face contorted.

"EWWWWW!" She screamed and ran out of the room. Hermione sighed and sat down. Letting go of Hector who took moments to regain himself before he elegantly departed… his gym shorts hanging at his knees revealing his lovely boxers that Aunt Dido had picked out for him… Hermione glanced at the photographic Malfoy who was leaning on Crabbe's shoulder. Laughing his head off.

"Shut up Prick." She whispered and slammed the book shut.

end chapter


	2. A Unforgettable Summer

Mark 2: I didn't like it the first time I wrote it and will be more careful in the future. I promise! This is the editted and rewritten version of Chapter Two. Hope you enjoy! I've changed my schedule so I will have more frequent updates. :P Thanks go out to Hater-of-Heartless-Critics, BalaLey and Neighpony who read the first edition. Erm... sorry... Opinions would be nice :P

**Chapter Two**

**An Unforgettable Summer**

Unlike Helen who ultimately detested her bedroom, Hermione quite liked the plain, unadorned sleeping area that she called _her _room. After-all when a person had spent far too of their time much dealing with a extremely colourful, confronting life it was easy to lose their essence and base and so when Hermione returned from spending months away she would come and simply return to being simple in her bedroom.

It also didn't help that she wasn't a particularly feminine girl to start with and having lived with two girls who could be described easily as the Queen-Bee type who spent far too much time transforming their dormitory into a fashionable and stylish bedchamber and not enough time studying she needed downtime. The year beforehand contemporary colours had been the rage, apparently, and that had meant bright, 'hot' colours being splashed all over the place that created an effect on her eyeballs that could only be imitated by staring at the sun after being in a dark room for a while and then looking away. She hadn't had a chance to escape the colour siege for even the beds had been attacked, to such an extent that had wondered how it was possible for Lavender or Parvati to be able to fail Transfiguration and be so capable at transfiguring neatly stitched rusty gold and dusty dark red quilts and other bed-linen into such boldly coloured and interestingly shaded quilts of orange, purple and a pink colour that Lavender had described as 'Cerise'. It sounded far too close to a girl's name for Hermione's tastes and she wouldn't have been surprised if the name actually turned up in the sorting.

Yes, the plain room at home was definitely downtime from sensory overload, and it would never change no matter how much Helen crinkled her nose or Aunt Dido huffed snootily and offered to redecorate. It was one of her favourite places and being so she would've liked to remain in her sanctuary till the sunset the following day, not simply because it had obvious benefits but because her instincts were screaming at her that if she were to emerge from the confines of her bedroom it would be instant doom. She was an intelligent person, brightest in her year some had called her, and so she listened to them for there was a usually good reason for them going haywire. However eventually she had to listen to a force that was far stronger than her instincts: her bladder.

So, Hermione found herself emerging from her hovel with an extreme sense of caution and feeling slightly desperate to get back to her room as quickly as possible.

_'Queue the Mission Impossible Music.' _She thought to herself and peered around the door frame to check if the dubious coast was clear of danger, of either the Dido, family or Death Eater variety and finding that the path to the bathroom was as clear as crystal (which meant that while it was strewn with various things that could be dangerous there was no sign of life because to be clear as glass would mean for there to be no dangerous things lying around). She did the intelligent thing and bolted with her towel and clothes tucked under her arm just in case. The repetitive tune that was tormenting her brain sped up with her legs and as she shoved the heavy wooden bathroom door closed and locked it letting out a heavy sigh of relief. She had made it without being cursed, or worse, seen.

It was _that day_, she realised annoyed to realise that even though she'd had an early reminder that morning she'd completely forgotten about it when she'd gone back to sleep. It had been the reason her instincts were warning her about danger.

Hermione yelped as she turned the shower tap on to receive the freezing water and waited slowly for the taps to heat up and stepped under again. _That day_, meant it was Helen's sixth birthday which translated easily into a smaller family reunion because unlike her mother's family which gathered the brood together every five years and decided to meet at a different part of the clans hometown, and since the hometowns ranged from being in Germany, to France and all over the world, her father's family was slightly more conservative and very much smaller and so gathered together every summer holidays to wish Helen a happy birthday and trade gossip. It was only held on Helen's birthday because it was simply convenient. _That day_ meant that downstairs at both her house and Aunt Dido's were the preparations for the reunion and her remaining aunts and uncles would be travelling down by train to Winchester, her uncle and his wife from London with Dido's eldest daughter Cassandra, one uncle from Southampton and another from Portsmouth, an aunt from Brighton and her grandparents had arrived from Weymouth and had bordered up with Dido that night.

Her uncle Jason had an adequate description of it all. _Hell-On-Earth. _He'd described it that way to his elder sister only once and Dido had slapped him and he'd since made it his prerogative to always arrive late and slightly drunk, not enough to be noticed but the children could always tell because eventually he would crave more and go to retire in the longue room with his bottle of bourbon and was quite the comedian. Dido didn't like Bacchus. He said he was a bad role model but if he didn't turn up she would've been very put out.

Dido was this little voice who chirped away in a person's head and didn't stop and expected the same of others.

Her grandfather had a very different interpretation of what was going on. _It was the woman's world. _He'd say and shuffle away to hide somewhere to avoid either her feminist mother or Hermione herself but in a way her grandfather had described the situation most truly. Bustling women seemed to be everywhere shouting orders in loud voices to all those unfortunate enough to be present and were the exact reason Hermione's instincts were going haywire.

For some odd reason Dido expected her to contribute to her insane pattern and Hermione had taken after her mother in the fact that she was a feminist and firmly believed in female rights and equal treatment, something that was not evident in Dido's brain. Her mother being older and more mature bended to Dido's will, avoiding the confrontation but Hermione had not protested for elfish rights in a wizarding world who basically didn't care because she hated confrontation. She believed in standing up for what a person believed in, and Hermione believed in being herself which Dido did not. Dido believed that she was socially inept and her intelligence wasn't worth a pickle, and tried to do the best she could to correct the situation by 'helping Hermione along the path to womanhood by giving her womanly tasks.' Hermione privately thought that while her own daughter was ecstatic about having a cousin who was a witch, Dido probably thought she was a freak and might've tried to convince everyone else had not the fear of the Devil herself, also known as grandma and the matriarch of the Granger family thought that Hermione was wonderfully new-age and loved all the little helpful gadgets and creams that Hermione made sure to send her at every opportunity. Grandma was a good ally, but she still expected Hermione to follow Dido's orders, because Aunt Dido was older and therefore higher-up on the hierarchy.

And so, when the busy body was in such a mood the best action was to avoid her and plead ignorance. The Mission Impossible Music began again as Hermione moved to open the door and gaze out warily.

She made a break for it and had almost made it when the Mission Impossible Music met its peak and came crashing down when Aunt Dido caught sight of her, an impossibly Granger-grin breaking out on her rather flushed face. The woman was practically shining with the responsibility of having to organise and the fact that she had two houses instead of one to use to her advantage and for a moment Hermione considered telling her to go use her own house because Dido Granger-Smith was too much a busy-body to be allowed on Hermione's turf. The words ran through her head again and she winced as she realised that _she herself _was usually also a busy body. 'Damn.' She thought and plastered a rather fake grin on her face and went to confront Aunt Dido and her chemical perm that Hermione could not understand. She had nice straight hair and she wanted to make it mutated?

" 'Mione, darling, you're finally awake." Dido chirped and Hermione's fake grin broadened as she tried to work out how many metres she had to her sanctuary (Seven) and precisely how long it would take to sprint to it (less than five seconds, give or take). 'Mione was a name that her family had used since she was young but she was rather attached to her full name and while most had gotten the hint, Dido and Dido's family had completely missed the memo. She didn't mind Helen or Tor using it simply because they didn't know better but Dido should've known better.

"No, Actually I'm sleep walking and you're blocking my morning migration pattern." Dido's maniac grin grew and she chortled as if Hermione had said something that was devastatingly funny.

"I suppose you must be, after all you just got out of the shower and got straight back into your pyjamas." Hermione's eye trailed down to her clothing, just in case, and noticed that she hadn't that she'd simply thought that the jeans that she'd thought were clean in the dim natural light in her bedroom were in reality covered in grass-stains and clashed beautifully with the red World Cup polo shirt. She looked very... Christmassy but Dido was looking at the outfit in distaste, especially her knees and Hermione glanced down to notice the dried blood stains in the middle of the grass-stains that she realised that she'd put the jeans to the aside not to be worn on this particular day but to go back to Hogwarts with her where she could spell them because she was considered underage, especially when it came to using magic out of school.

"Actually- " Hermione began as Dido passed her, completely oblivious to what her niece had been about to say, and Hermione could've sworn that she saw a smirk that would rival Snape's in contenders for evil smirks dart across her aunt's features. She looked back, helplessly at Tor who was sniggering as he sat in front of a large pile of strange and peculiar objects and another pile of small platistic bags decorated with fairy paraphernalia. He was obviously encharge of the party bags while Helen was next door sulkily entertaining her grandparents because she wasn't able to open any presents till Uncle Bacchus arrived.

She was pulled inside her room and watched in horror as the woman's eyes darted around, somewhat disdainfully at the plain decorations and Hermione tried again to resist the woman.

"Aunt Dido, I thought you said we'd wait before we'd changed-" She valiantly tired, pulling the weak weary smile and hoping it would work. It didn't and Dido walked proudly over to her wardrobe and before Hermione could stop her the woman opened the doors and a pile of muggle style clothing that Hermione hadn't particularly been in the mood to hang up fell to the floor outside the cupboards base. Dido clicked her tongue and looked up at the hanging section in way that made the resemblance to the Head of Slytherin fade and be cross of Professor Sprout, a hyperactive bird and Hagrid seeing a new, 'cute' animal that was mostly probably poisonous.

"I've always wanted to do this." The woman said, eyes shining as she turned away from the wardrobe and Hermione cringed, 'I've never wanted you to do this.' she added to the chemical perm and tried, yet again to subtly hint with gestures for the woman to leave however Dido purposely annoyed Hermione's body's movements and began riffling through the clothes that hung up in the wardrobe.

'It's going to be like first year all over again.' Hermione moaned to herself glaring at the person who'd been responsible for the haircut that had made her hair so bushy and so much shorter to begin with. It had taken five years for it to look even somewhat presentable because at Hogwarts hair growth was far slower (unless there were abnormal circumstances like Seamus blasting his eyebrows off or Parvati while experimenting with magic-hair removal accidentally giving herself a Brazilian, those had been considered abnormal circumstances and so the regrowth of hair had been of normal speed) than normal so that they didn't need to send students to continuously get their hair cut because the chaos of dealing with three hundred students on one Hogsmede Weekend Day was simply something any hairdresser shouldn't be able to cope with. So, even with such restrictions it was at least as long as her mid-back and while still slightly bushy it was controllable by the magic of elastic hair-ties.

Dido was quickly pushing aside the clothes that Hermione, or anybody who actually followed Hermione's tastes in fashion had bought her and was quickly filtering the rather large section of magical-clothing for anything that could possibly be appropriate and Hermione realised with a feeling of dread that the section had been purchased either by Lavender, Parvati or Ginny, however some came from various 'well meaning' underclassmen that Hermione hadn't had the heart to wear and intended to donate somewhere and hadn't gotten around to it. Dido purred in excitement as she realised that that particular clothes section was far larger than she'd originally thought due to the magic that they'd been woven full of.

"Now that's practical, none of those jelly-beans that tastes like grass." She muttered darkly and her hand fell on the dress she'd gotten from Su Li that the Chinese girl had made her while she was creating her audition pieces for Madam Malkan's Dress-Robes. She'd been experimenting with different body-types and Hermione had represented the super-model faction, not because she had any talent or looks in that area Su Li was quick to inform her - she only had the right body type: she was thin as a stick, had breasts belonging to a washboard and was taller than the other girls in a way that Su Li, and Lavender, described as masculine. Hermione had said that she still much shorter than the giant Ron, to whom Lavender had giggled flirtatiously and fluttered her eyelashes at and Hermione had had to push down the urge to stomp out in fury as Ron had grinned broadly at the flirt, and she was still a head and a half shorter than Harry, who had groaned about something that she translated to "Makes it so much easier to choke on your hair." She'd shot him a poisonous look but Su Li prevailed and she'd ended up with a Chinese Inspired aqua dress.

"This is beautiful." Hermione sent her a flat look as Dido threw it at her and stared, expecting Hermione to change infront of her.

"Are you shy dear? Nothing to hide! We all have them." Hermione stared.

* * *

_It was hot but he shivered in excitement at the sight of the massively huge beast that stood in front of him with its scales and camouflage. Great orange slitted eyes stared at him amusement, jaws widening but his obsession went too far to be able to move. Draco could feel the pain that came from the dragon's hot breath and-_

He woke up with a rather large headache that often occurred after a large amount of alcohol had been consumed in vast quantities and while he stared at the tent roof in bemusement trying to recall the events of the previous day the first thing he concluded was that he had indeed drunken far too much alcohol.

It was an easy assumption; his body ached all over, his head hurt and everything felt like it was on fire and he had a rather attractive girl's arm lying across his stomach leisurely. Her very touch however burned and the ceiling swerved and he shut his eyes that also stung. His entire body felt like it was on fire.

And so, he desperately tried to recall the events of the day previous.

Draco Malfoy, had a rather romantic, if not deluded view of himself and he rather liked the idea that the girl on top of him had been the result of rather drunken night and he'd had rather drunken sex.

After all he was a handsome heir, and an only child and there were few people around in the world to persuade him otherwise, and the list could be counted on both hands including his inferior cousins, a half-witch, half-banshee childhood friend named Millicent (and the only reason he attempted to listen to her was because she had a singing voice that could shatter marble and it was simply a wise decision not to get her shrieking at him), and his rivals and enemies although they didn't count. He looked in the mirror, which told him of that he was the fairest thing it had ever seen, and knew he was handsome. Although his adoptive cousin Agrippina Snape had once told him that he was beautiful but he lacked that certain masculine quality to his appearance, he ignored her; after all what did a five-almost six year old know about masculinity or femineity?

Then he recalled the previous day and realised why he'd forced amnesia on himself.

His father had had business with the Australian Ministry, business that he hadn't talked to Draco about and had decided that if he had to suffer the extreme weather of the 'land down under' so had his family. His mother had politely declined, saying that she had to deal with affairs concerning the estates of Black and her newest inheritance however his father wouldn't buy the fact that he'd organised a friendly Quidditch Practice with his year-mates as a legitimate reason and so Draco had discovered Australia with dread and been left there for two gruelling weeks.

He'd arrived knowing next to nothing and the first thing that he'd learnt had been that Australia was the largest island in the world and with that knowledge had spent the entire first week and a half getting practice apparating from household to household all over the country since they had few fire places to use floo powder in, so as a result he figured if he hadn't mastered apparition for the exam he was now a genius at it. Then he'd learnt that it was standard for all magical children at fourteen to have mastered the skill in Australia since with the port key it was the only reliable magical transportation that could be used however at the end of each month, a Tasmanian cousin had informed him, they had to fill out a log under a truth serum that said every place out of their city that they'd apparated to. _So annoying... _he'd said before the baby White-lip snake he'd been playing with bit him and had yelped to stick his hand under the water tap, glowering at it. The White-Lip his cousin had informed him when he'd seen the small snake was only poisonous to people without any trace of magical ancestry, just like bee stings were. One ancestor was enough, even if for generations they'd been squibs and eventually muggles for the poison not to work.

That had been the second thing that Draco had learnt about Australia; it had one of the largest, if not the largest, population of magical reptiles and that most Australians were instinctual parselmouths but were rarely useful to the Dark Lord because they could tell if reptiles were around and had a limited snake-vocabulary, due to most Australian snakes were either wild or lazy and therefore had a snake-vocabularly that was generally limited to 'MINE!', 'MY TERRITORY!' 'INVADER!' 'SCRAM!' or 'PEST!' His cousin had explained that as the reason that Voldemort preferred to stay away from the Magical Colonies in that area because nothing was more frustrating then listening to lazy people who avoided confrontation whenever they could when you want to start a war.

He hadn't particularly liked the southern end of the country and been somewhat happier when he'd apparated North and found beautiful beaches and seen a sand-covered rock-dragon about the size of a rather large cat try and kill a bird. That had been the third thing he'd learnt about Australia. It was basically a giant dragon enclosure and had been used as one before the settlers had arrived and they'd continued the practice on the theory that Australian dragons were somewhat less bloodthirsty than their European cousins and definitely less vicious, less vicious being translated to mean instead of being the responsibility of dragon keepers to look after and ensure that they stayed hidden they all blended into their environments perfectly and ensorcelled unwary travellers to their deaths and ate them, and there had been no known cases of one ever being sighted by the muggle community simply because a majority of the continent was uninhabitable and it's population lived mostly on the coastal areas. He'd been particularly excited about new knowledge, after all Draco liked dragons. And it wasn't just the fact that his name was the Latin Origin for the creature he was obsessed by them; even the mention of one would arouse him to forget about everything else and not care about the dangers; first year being a prime example when he'd followed Granger and Potter after hours and his only reward being what he'd seen in the window. His obsession made him jealous of others who got to see them up close, although his father told him it was childish he felt a swell of childish resentment towards Ron because his brother worked with them constantly and towards Saint Potter who'd gotten to _fight _with one.

Any mention of a Dragon and Draco lost all sense of self-preservation - he'd joined Care of Magical Creatures hadn't he? Just because he'd thought the giant could get another Dragon to show them and he had been very ill tempered when the buffoon hadn't. So, when the next cousin had mentioned there was a desert dragon roosting in the sand dunes of the Eastern Simpson Desert, Draco had listened to his faulty instincts and had found the roost, almost gotten eaten, and received a sunburn so painful that only Englishmen with their pale white skin could ever receive.

His fantasy about alcohol shattered with the recollection he moaned at the memory as he realised that the source of his headache, forced amnesia and the burning sensations were from his trip to the desert. He stared dazedly at the arm that was across his stomach and winced as it shifted on his sunburn and tried to figure out how that had happened.

She groaned and he followed the arm up to the persons head as the arm moved to rub her hair as she sat up to glance at him and grinned, somewhat maliciously and the question was answered. The likelihood of this being either a sympathiser to his pathetic plight or a helpful mediwitch decreased rapidly when he realised the woman had long bleached blonde hair and grey-green eyes. Another Malfoy cousin, two of three generations removed from the main lines and Malfoy's, or Spinks or any of the other lines and family names usually were sadistic, and which meant they took amusement in any person's pain, and often antagonised it.

This particular cousin was named Claudia and she was no different, and in some ways could be considered one of the worst of them and had simply found a constructive career for herself instead of pointing and laughing. Claudia was one of the thousands of medi-witches employed by the Australian Ministry to live out in the country and act as a nomadic Saint Mungo's or Madame Pomfrey and since his apparition to her tent he'd learnt that the Mediwitch certification was not for show although she continued to be a saditistic little girl. Even now, after she'd finished properly waking, she was looking at his skin with a sickening fascination and to his horror he knew what she was thinking. The telepathic message began with 'P' and rhymed perfectly with 'Smoke'.

He could already see her hand snaking forward and he tried to move away, not relishing the fact that his sunburn had somewhat glued him to the sheets and the action of his get away created a conflict with the fused that was solved with a large ripping nose as his teeth went straight down on his lip.

Draco had been raised a proper wizard and had never felt the pain of a bandaid being pulled off taught skin or even hairy bare skin but the removal of the sheet from his bare back had the same effect and so the only words he had to describe such a situation was: that sadistic female dog.

'Merlin, that hurt.' He thought to himself the instant he hit the floor and sat up instantly, trying to regain his dignity. He took a deep breath and decided to ignore the burning sensations because it would only amuse Claudia for that was probably the only reason she had left it unhealed.

"Good Morning." Her sunnily voice came from above him and he scowled up at her, her face having appeared from the top of the elevated bed. At least a meter off the floor it seemed insanely high for a bed but she was grinning at him like nothing had happened and he decided to take the highroad and while greeting her would be beneath him, she was of the branch family after all, and complaining give her satisfaction demanding answers was neither.

"Why am I on the medical bed, Claudia?" He tried to drawl, unsuccessfully as he was still feeling the bandaided sheet, the sunburn and now the fall from the high-bed. In response she shrugged.

"Drew found you in the desert and stayed the night." She licked her lips and Draco felt the need to bang his head against something blunt, and while he obviously wouldn't the need was there. She was a master of sadism and it seemed knew all the right buttons to be pushed and from the corner of his eye he could see two beds, one of which was his own, pushed together with the sheets laid across the home-made double bed. He was sure that this was another sick form of torture because surely nobody would have sex when a family member lay sleeping on the other-side of the room. She was grinning at him rather snakily and his imagination hyperventilated. Claudia might be removed from her roots but she surely hadn't degenerated so far.

"Good to know." He ground out slowly, pretending to have accepted the comment as a light hearted joke and Claudia's eyebrows rose as she realised that she that she was competing with a Malfoy and would have to up the ante if she wanted to get any enjoyment out of him. She went for the obvious.

"So, Drake," She began, and he sent a dirty look her way and she smirked and he internally groaned. He'd shown her that she was back in the game but he couldn't help it. Dray-co was only two syllables and didn't deserve or need to be demonised into a variety of male duck in an attempt to make it even shorter.

"How's the sunburn?" The grin told him that she was playing dirty and he was hit with a revelation about why exactly she was beside his bed that morning, especially when she wasn't the worrying or caring-sit-by-the-bedside type. He could see bruises on his wrist and her grin turned to a smirk as he examined the extremity. She'd been poking him.

She'd been poking his boiling hot sunburned skin that while it was now slightly peeling because it was no longer being exposed to the heat still emitted an aura similar to that of the sun. Her grin told him that there was no way on earth the woman should've been allowed to become a mediwitch. She didn't help people in pain. She antagonised it.

This woman and all of his cousins contained more evil, he decided resolutely, then the man who sook to eliminate the plague that were muggles. Lord Voldemort was at least constructive.

Even now her long elegent conic fingers were twitching against the barely restrained impulse to poke the sunburn and her grin told him that she was waiting to hear his girlish shriek of pain. He was a man, damn-it, and he decided to take it like a man.

He stood up, indicating the spar of wits was over and stared down at her sprawled form on the bed and took pleasure in the fact that she had to roll over to look up at him. He'd hit a growth spurt, finally, to his utmost joy and while he'd never be a freak like Weasley it was to his extreme joy that instead of being seven inches shorter than Potter that he now stood at 5'9" since his last measurement and had plans on reaching 6" and greater. Potter was 5'10", according to the latest article by Rita Skeeter.

Claudia was only 5'2" and it gave him a sense of power to look down his nose at his twenty-two year old cousin.

He smirked, to show that she was beneath him, and turned to walk out of the tent, collecting a stray robe and putting the seamless fabric over his sunburnt skin and fastening the clasps and stepped out of the wizard tent into the fresh air.

The tent had been set up in a beachside clearing, meaning the pale dirt was made of fine granules filled with tiny twigs, spurs and fallen seedpods that reminded him that he needed to find where Claudia had stashed his shoes or get to the beach and its fine white sand. Huge trees surrounded the clearing with their long thin leaves, stereotypical of beachside trees and created an eerie feeling in the morning light, like a horror production from the theatre he realised and took note of the three surfboards that had been buried in the sand and the rocks that surrounded a rather pathetic looking campfire.

The twenty-eight year old pureblood that Claudia had introduced as Drew, was currently levitating a rather flat metal board with his right wand arm and was wielding a spatula with the other as he expertly cooked what smelt to be breakfast. He grinned honestly at Draco and Draco frowned, thinking exactly what he'd been thinking when he'd been introduced. He seemed to open and too nice to be romantically involved with Claudia.

"Claude hasn't healed you yet?" The man asked as he flipped a rather fatty piece of bacon over and it crackled nosily. Draco opened his mouth to complain to the Australian magical wildlife biologist but Claudia had the misfortune of emerging from the tent in something that Draco barely classed as clothing. He hadn't seen it before but now it made him cringe. Animals walked around naked, humans did not, it was the state of natural life and what she wore - a bikini and short shorts could hardly be classified as clothing. Witches and Wizards wore robes, Muggles and Mudbloods might deign to wear such improper clothing but Claudia should've known better.

"It's not that bad Drew, and if I heal him he won't have a lovely tan to show off when he goes back to Hogwarts," Drew looked slightly suspicious but ended up nodding in agreement with Claudia whose eyes brightened as Draco glared at her and her oblivious boyfriend. He'd known that Claudia wouldn't heal him but to hear it said and believed made it so much worse.

"Besides, Uncle Lou told me that Draco needs to develop a pain threshold, too much complaining about little cuts and scrapes." He wondered for a grim moment how Weasley, Potter or anybody else in the wizarding world would react to Lucius Malfoy being called Uncle Lou, or even his father's reaction to Claudia's petname and felt a sadistic desire to find out and watch, whoever got hurt deserved it. He glared at her.

A sausage spat noisily which brought Drew's attention back to his makeshift barbeque as he prodded the piece of meat with his spatula and looked at the trees that lead to the beach.

"Dave said he'd come around for breakfast, said he'd found some Coral-Dragons and Sea-Serpents that aren't looking too hot what with the coral bleaching and with water warming." Draco perked up and turned his attention on Drew who had his tongue in between his teeth as he pushed the onions around the plate and for a while Draco was curious about what he was going to do when the food was cooked. His wand was busy levitating and the other hand had a spatula. Then he remembered the mention of Dragons and all other thoughts disappeared from his head.

"We get to see Dragons?" He said, trying to sound somewhat suave and not as eager as the sixteen year old felt. He'd thought it had come out quite well until Claudia snorted at him and Drew smiled somewhat condescendingly, as if to a child. He straightened himself and went to sit in one of the foldout chairs that surrounded the clearing near the barbeque and tried not to see eager. Drew let out a heavy laugh.

"He never had a chance." Claudia remarked disdainfully. "His name does mean dragon." He scowled at his cousin as Drew shrugged and proceeded to show Draco how he'd get everything off the barbeque. A status spell left the plate hovering slightly and a summoning spell retrieved the picnic basket from inside the tent. The meal was split four ways and Draco caught the plate as it was sent his way on another spell. The fire flickered down to embers and the plate was overturned to cover the fire hazard.

"It's lovely!" Claudia remarked sweetly and kissed Drew rather soundly and Draco stared at them unashamed, the image of the makeshift double bed appearing again in his mind and he shuddered. Who made cousins anyway? He thought to himself and stabbed the sausage rather brutally eying in suspicion. Another of his cousins had called them 'snags' while lecturing Draco about Austalian Culture however he had this cruel Malfoy smirk present at the corner of his mouth during the description and had later added that a variety of 'snag' was made of Kangaroo meat. He didn't want to know what a kangaroo was but it sure as hell wasn't related to chicken, pork or beef.

He felt Drew's eyes on him and smiled weakly before cutting off a bite sized portion of the sausage and stuffing it in his mouth. It tasted the same as regular sausages, he realised in relief and chewed slowly, watching as Drew speared his own sausage and bit into the piece of meat. It was nice Draco realised as he cut his entire meal up and chewed on a combination of egg and bacon.

'Pop!' The familiar noise of apparition met his ears and he blinked and pushed the onion to the side of his plate. A bedraggled surfer stood somewhat off centre in the clearing, his thick and slightly long hair was tied back and he was grinning and wearing only a set of shorts. He had a long surfboard under his arm which he quickly stuffed next to the other boards in the loose dirt.

"Morning All! Surf's Awesome!" He said laughing and retrieved the forth plate and plonked himself in the chair next to Draco, and since neither Claudia nor Drew had reacted to the man's abrupt appearance or stealing of the food Draco gathered that the man was Dave.

Dave looked up from his rather messy meal which he was tackling with what seemed to be the opposite of finesse and eyed him, looking him up and down in a way similar to that seemed similar to a person appraising meat. Draco choose the remaining end of the sausage which was slightly larger than bit-sized and bit down on it hard enough that his teeth jarred as the met the metal fork but felt proud of himself till he realised that Dave was looking at Claudia instead as if he was stupid. Draco scowled and choked down the sausage which he really should've cut in half.

"Is _she_ your cousin, Claude?" Dave asked his sadistic cousin whose cheeks were bulging slightly to indicate that she had food in her mouth and to Draco's horror he realised she was eating with her fingers. Was he the only person in the area who knew proper table manners? He was so focused on being repulsed by Claudia that he didn't pay attention to Dave's question till Claudia nodded and Dave stared at him again in a way that made the pureblood feel uncomfortable, he began to mix the mushrooms in the slightly runny egg and decided to be occupy himself with finishing the rest of the meal. Dragons. He chanted to himself as Dave's stare increased in intensity.

"Wow, Didn't know you had such an attractive gene pool, even with the sunburn she's a real beauty." The man whistled and Draco choked on his mushroom-egg. Claudia sat there, a piece of bread in her hand, frozen and Drew shut his eyes in embarrassment. He tried to be rational. Claudia really was ugly, after all the thin aristocratic build that he sported had been corrupted in her own face which seemed slightly rat-like which meant he wasn't ugly... 'No... he said _she_ was a beauty.' Draco finished off his meal in the eerie silence and Dave looked slightly confused.

"Claudia. You really do have strange friends." He replied with a cruel Malfoy smile on his face and Claudia winced, at the unofficial rule that had been broken. Sadism was never based on the appearances that were permanent but merely somebody in pain.

"I mean, seriously," He drawled lazily. "If he hadn't just complimented our gene pool, I might be feeling rather insulted -" He looked down at Dave in a way that showed that he meant the opposite of his words and that he was indeed insulted, "- at the fact that a man who professes that we have an attractive family can't tell the difference between genders." He snorted, and headed off back into the tent to raid Claudia's healing salve which he knew she must have because she wasn't a masochist and had rather pale skin naturally as well.

"That's Draco Malfoy, he's the Malfoy heir." He heard Claudia explaining and scowled as he opened one particular cupboard, hoping to find a weapon destined to carry out his vengeance for his questioned manhood and instead discovered her store of womanly sanitary products and tried again to find the sunburn balm.

Somebody was going to die.

+end chapter+

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